How One Painful Encounter Revealed the Animal Empath Love Triangle — and Why Loving Animals Is Easy, But Loving People and Ourselves Takes Practice
I believe that every experience in life is a lesson that teaches us something, and this experience was no different.
As I had done many times before, I went to speak with a neighbor about something simple; something I was giving away. I was asking if they still wanted it, as I was trying to clear away some clutter.
Next thing I knew, the conversation turned into something very different. There was an accusation that was made toward me that wasn’t true (because of a rumor), which was a shock.
Then they corrected themselves, but were still on the attack. (Were they angry because their own accusation was false?)
So they continued with more accusations that were false, and I continued to anxiously defend myself as though I was deflecting cannonballs with a shield that was becoming dented. And all of the accusations were hitting my nervous system hard as I kept denying the onslaught of personal attacks. (I can feel it in my gut just remembering it.)
There was one final blow where I was told to leave, and I walked home in utter shock. I cried, and felt traumatized.
Then those feelings turned into resentment. I thought “I’ll never speak to this person ever again”, because I didn’t want to experience that trauma once more.
The resentment turned into discomfort: How am I going to live this way for the foreseeable future? How can I walk or drive past this person carrying this bitterness?
A couple of days later, I was listening to someone who spoke about her near death experience. She said that she was given a different perspective of other people, by understanding what a co-worker had been through that made her struggle the way she did.
It opened her heart to having more compassion for her co-worker. It also changed her entire perspective of people in general.
So I realized I needed to re-examine my own feelings, and that’s when the Animal Empath Love Triangle hit me. Because as animal empaths, we have a tendency to love animals the most. But ourselves and others; not as much (because we feel their pain, and it can really hurt).
When I reflected on myself and the other person, I could see my own sensitivity. But I also saw the other person as a war veteran (like my own father), who most likely carried unhealed emotional wounds.
The end result of my reflection was a feeling of empathy. So instead of coiling away from them and harboring resentment, I was able to open my heart to understanding them for who they are as a person.
I knew that I needed to let go of my own negative feelings, and allow myself to have empathy for someone that I could easily have resented for the rest of my life.
Because the truth is that it probably triggered something within me: A past experience that hadn’t yet healed. I could see the person as an “Agent of Change”, which is someone that comes into our life to reflect back to us a change that we need to make within ourselves.
Of course, this takes allot of courage and self-reflection. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s also not meant for us to be self-critical.
Remember, the Animal Empath Love Triangle has three components: Animals, Other People and Ourselves. So we must keep all three in mind when it comes to empathy.
That doesn’t mean that we have to be close to someone that hurt us or excuse their behavior, but we can be free from the sea of resentment and emotions that keep us in a trap. We can shift the focus in a way that feels better for us so that we can have peace of mind.
As animal empaths, we feel deeply for animals and often retreat into their unconditional love. This can happen because we’re sensitive to reactions of other people (anger, fear, etc.) and animals help heal our emotional reaction.
It can be hard to love ourselves, and especially hard to love others – particularly when they behave in a way that we don’t understand. This is not only a challenge, but an important lesson for animal empaths.
This is the issue that we’re meant to learn from. And it can be difficult to open our hearts to others, because we don’t want to get our sensitive emotions crushed again.
So when it comes to interacting with other people in a way that honors us and keeps us in a state of compassion without shutting down (which we can easily do), we can:
- Practice visualizing protection around ourselves. We do this by imagining a layer of golden white light that surrounds us, and another layer of mirrors that surrounds the light (with the mirrors facing outward). In other words, we’re using the power of our mind to deflect emotions that feel toxic to us. Metaphors work well for this.
- Step back and look at them from a different perspective. As an animal empath and hypnotherapist, I like using “animal archetypes” as a way to understand life. In this case, the giraffe – with it’s long neck, is an example of how we can begin to view things differently. (Ask yourself: What’s really going on here?) And approach it from an understanding viewpoint.
- Keep your heart open. It can be easy to shut down and want to resent someone, but when we keep our heart open in love, we avoid not only hurting them – but ourselves as well. As we learn in the bible: Love your neighbor as yourself. (What a huge lesson for empaths: It includes both us and them.)
Practicing these three points helps us to love ourselves, by caring for our own needs through self-protection. It also allows us to have more empathy for others by not getting bruised and battered easily, so that we don’t feel resentment.
Because in order for the Animal Empath Love Triangle to be in balance, we need to cover all three bases. If we focus mostly on animals, it leaves us neglecting ourselves and others.
Is self-love a bad thing? The truth is, that we can never become self-centered; it’s not in our nature, so don’t worry about that. The self-love component is necessary to be healthy on all levels: Mentally, emotionally and physically, because as empaths; it’s easy to neglect ourselves.
By the way, needing support in this area is common as an empath, so if you feel that way – you’re not alone. And, this is about our own healthy survival in a world that feels exceedingly harsh: When we keep the triangle in balance, we become our most effective selves in society.
We stay in balance, and those around us benefit from it as well. After all; animals teach us unconditional love, and that’s one of the greatest lessons we can learn from them.
🌀 If you’d like support in working through your own triangle, I offer complimentary Wild Wisdom Clarity Sessions — where we explore what’s coming up for you, how your empathic gifts are guiding you, and how you can move forward with peace, purpose, and connection.
